


Frailty

by Jane St Clair (3jane)



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-05
Updated: 2011-08-05
Packaged: 2017-10-22 06:38:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3jane/pseuds/Jane%20St%20Clair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After four days, they let him go back to the surface.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frailty

After four days, they let him go back to the surface. Misato's flat wasn't actually destroyed in the last attack, but the roads were impassable, and the residual radiation was

 

"Significant."

 

"Yes sir."

 

So for four days Shinji slept in a training room, miles underground in NERV. He kept his mat on one side of the room, as far as he could get from Asuka and Rei.

 

He knows Asuka doesn't like Rei. He *knows* that. But sometime in the first night, Asuka whimpered, and woke, and crawled away from her bed and lay down beside Rei. When Shinji got up later to go to the bathroom, he could tell even in the gloom that there were two girls under the big pile of blankets.

 

On the other side of the screens, Misato and Ritsuko were awake and talking, but both laid flat. Side by side.

 

Maybe, if Shinji had grown up with a family, in a real place, he'd think it was normal for women to always sleep touching.

 

After three days, NERV was claustrophobic. His father was there, somewhere, but Shinji never saw him.

 

After four days, they let him go. Misato promised to drive him home, later; she'd "borrowed" a military vehicle that could climb the uncleared rubble. Until then, he was to just. Something. Be quiet. Be above ground. And eventually someone took pity on him and took him down to the harbour. Told him about the lost Narita Airport, which used to stand far out in the islands.

 

The Dauntless came in while they were standing there. A silver sea-ship all the way from England slid off the Pacific into Tokyo Bay, flying clear banners and carrying weapons the government had been half a year procuring. The British had given up; they were going to tunnel underground, into the bedrock of their island, and wait for the Angels to pass. The British Navy, those who remained, went to sea. Exactly one ship came as far as Japan.

 

Glittering wings on the Dauntless' deck. Softer biotechnology than his father had carved into the Evas, but

 

"It can fly," Shinji said.

 

"Yes, it can."

 

And the Interceptor rose off the Dauntless' runway and hung there, flickering in the sunlight and haze.

 

Then Misato found him and took him home for a bath and school.

 

He meet Commodore Norrington days later. Big, thin Englishman in blue uniform and white dress trousers. All that white hair moving around his face in the ocean wind. Ritsuko wanted to see the Interceptor, and she thought "the children" should come. "For their education." And the school said it could be a field trip.

 

Up close, the Interceptor was beautiful. Alien. It didn't have even the vague human form of an Eva; it looked like a miniature Angel. Something without earthly shape, but built to kill.

 

"Where did it come from?"

 

"The Angel that destroyed London shed a wing. They took it away to Oxford and studied it and built the Interceptor out of its cells," said Norrington. *Commodore* Norrington. Though neither NERV nor UN, he outranked everyone else present. Shinji listened to him and nodded and looked at the toes of his shoes. "It flies, yes. And it is very, very fast."

 

"Yes sir."

 

"I gather we have you to thank for destroying the Angel of London."

 

"Yes sir."

 

"May I convey the gratitude of our Parliament."

 

"Yes sir. Thank you." Shinji looked up at Commodore Norrington, just for a moment. The man offered him a tight, wry smile.

 

Across the deck, Misato made herself fairly obvious to Lieutenant Groves. He didn't appear to be objecting.

 

Norrington shifted, and the wind caught his cloak. Momentary billow of navy blue, and Shinji caught sight of a sword on the man's hip.

 

And later, when the sky was eerie purple-blue and a thing like Dragonflies chewed up the mountains, Shinji came up out of the ground to kill it any way he could. His Eva twitched a little when they surfaced, enough to make Shinji look at the harbour. The Dauntless was far out to sea. Invisible.

 

When the Angel's fire caught the Eva's arm, it hurt quite a lot.

 

Then there were wings, fast as hummingbirds and darting around the Angel's head. Quick and intelligent though nowhere near sharp enough to kill. But the Interceptor led the Angel away from the mountain towns and off the plain of inverted Tokyo-3. It vanished only when the Angel hung like clouds and Shinji stood at the harbour's edge and Asuka reached up and seized the thing and drowned it in fire and the sea.

 

The radiation was worse this time than last. Ritsuko said, "Two weeks."

 

"What?!"

 

"We have to stay down two weeks. I have your school lessons. You'll all stay here until it's safe."

 

So Shinji was trapped again. With Misato and Ritsuko, who bickered and worked and talked into the night. With Rei, who never looked at him, and Asuka, who dreamed about thinks that made her shake and cry and hate him. With his father like a phantom in other rooms. With a thousand NERV personnel moving all night.

 

Food was more regimented there than at Misato's. Shinji was always hungry in the nights, but he wasn't sure where the kitchens were. If there were kitchens.

 

He put on his trousers slid off to the bathroom, then let himself out into the hall. It was too bright: military-lit, all the time. Techs walked past him and never said anything.

 

There had to be food *somewhere*.

 

He walked down corridors and took elevators. The command levels were easy to avoid. For a while, he looked at his Eva, hanging in its repair frame. At its strange almost-face. Then down the hall, into the familiar/unfamiliar area which he only gradually recognized as the infirmary. He didn't think he'd ever been there without a concussion, which might explain why he hadn't known the way.

 

There was less light, here. Dimness brought the hallways down from white to grey. He did, eventually, find a kind of supplemental kitchen where they heated food for the patients. There was ramen in a cupboard, and hot water. He decided it would do.

 

"That smells disturbingly good."

 

Commodore Norrington. This time capeless and swordless, with one arm bandaged. Shinji wondered why he was so reminded of Misato in her underwear. "How does one make those?"

 

"Noodles?"

 

"Yes."

 

"With, um, hot water."

 

"Hmmm. Deceptively simple." Norrington carefully peeled back a lid and added a little water, then tucked it in the microwave, watched the packet turn. Took it out and sniffed the results. "Thank you."

 

"You're welcome, sir."

 

"You should probably eat before your supper cools."

 

"Yes sir."

 

Which meant, ultimately, that the two of them sat in near-pajamas at a military issue table in the dimmed nurse's kitchen, eating ramen. The Commodore was only passably adept with chopsticks. Shinji ate, watched the table, watched the man across from him. Blood spotted Norrington's bandage. Shinji thought about the sympathetic burn on his own arm.

 

"I didn't know you were injured in the battle, sir."

 

"It wasn't serious."

 

"But you're in the infirmary."

 

"Mmm. Yes, apparently." The man shifts and Shinji sees him wince. He thinks, disturbingly, of Rei, who also walks around with white hair and blood on her skin. But Rei never, ever talks to him.

 

"Sir, may I ask you a question?"

 

"You may."

 

"Why did you come here?" He can't imagine why anyone would. The recent world is bloody and terrible, and there must be people worth defending far from here.

 

"Why did you?"

 

"My father called me."

 

"Well. I am, in fact, an officer of the British Royal Navy."

 

"I heard England was destroyed."

 

"In another age, I suppose I would have to lecture you at this point on the eternity of the British Empire."

 

"Yes sir."

 

"However, you are entirely correct."

 

"And you?"

 

"I have no particular talent for living in caves."

 

Shinji says, "We're in a cave here. Actually."

 

"I can't say I'm fond of this cave either."

 

"Neither am I. They said ten more days underground and then we can go back."

 

"Above ground, yes."

 

"Will you stay here?"

 

"I live on the Dauntless."

 

"That's a ship."

 

"Yes, it is."

 

Shinji wonders whether he'd like living on a ship. He wonders how Commodore Norrington learned to fly the Interceptor, and whether he could fly the Eva-01 instead of Shinji (of course not, he's too old, but it's a fantasy, and Shinji can pretend if he wants to).

 

"Sir . . . ?"

 

"Yes?"

 

*take me with you*

 

Shinji shrugs. He collects his noodle cup, and Norrington's. Throws them away along with the fast-food chopsticks. Digs in the fridge for something to drink.

 

Hands drop onto his shoulders. "What’s wrong?"

 

Shinji looks over his shoulder at the Englishman, who has blackened both his eyes and burned his arm, and who flies like a man without an empire to defend.

 

Twists around and wraps both arms around Norrington's neck and kisses him.

 

He isn't good at this. He can lick and mouth all he wants, but it never quite slides into what he suspects a kiss is supposed to be. Norrington's mouth softens, only a little, before the man eases him back.

 

"Mister Ikari."

 

"My name is Shinji."

 

"Yes, I know." Norrington sighs. "You're a child."

 

Flinch. "Yes sir."

 

Norrington sighs again. With his eyes closed, he looks like a cat after you've blown in its face.

 

"I'm sorry."

 

"Yes, so am I."

 

"Really?"

 

"Go back to bed."

 

"Yes sir."

 

The hallway is brighter than the kitchen. Shinji tries to remember which way he came from.

 

"Mister Ikari?"

 

"Yes sir?"

 

"I truly am sorry."

 

"Yes sir. Thank you."

 

It takes him a long time to find his way back to bed. He sheds his trousers and curls up, tries to think about flying or school work. Preferably not Englishmen with their raw places showing.

 

He rolls over and finds Rei looking at him. She says, "He'll ask you for it. Later."

 

"I don't think so."

 

"They all do."

 

"No. They don't."

 

She shrugs. Rolls away from him. Asuka turns in her sleep and reaches for Rei.

 

Shinji gives up trying to sleep and looks at the ceiling. Someone plastered the room, trying to make it look less like a cave or a military box. Dampness is cracking the plaster already. He thinks, Ten more days underground.

 

 

 [25 April 2004]


End file.
